• The Pentagon inspector general found the Defense Health Agency failed to issue finalized guidance defining roles, responsibilities and access-to-care standards after reorganizing the military health system. The average wait for urgent medical appointments at military medical treatment facilities outside the United States stretched as long as 21 days in some locations, while routine appointments were delayed by as much as 37 days. Auditors also said many overseas facilities were understaffed and personnel working in military clinics and hospitals experienced burnout and low morale. The inspector general recommended that the DHA director track data on why personnel are leaving military medical facilities.
  (DoD IG finds long care delays, staffing gaps at overseas military hospitals - DoD IG)
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should consolidate its scanning contracts to boost its records digitization efforts. That’s one recommendation from the USCIS ombudsman’s latest annual report. It also said USCIS needs to standardize its scanning operations to ensure documents are appropriately tagged with searchable metadata. The report touts how artificial intelligence could help the agency create fully searchable records. USCIS has been on a years-long journey to digitize its records, but it still manages approximately 171 million paper files.
  (USCIS ombudsman annual report - Department of Homeland Security)
• The Treasury Department is looking for AI experts who can put their skills to the test. A new job posting is asking candidates to use these tools to write a 10-page analysis of metaphors used in The Great Gatsby, then summarize it into a 200-word summary. Candidates must then translate the essay into Spanish and Mandarin. They must also compare the book’s metaphors against three other novels of their choosing and then rewrite their essay in the style of a scientific paper.
  (IT specialist (artificial intelligence) - USAJobs)
• Lawmakers dropped several quality-of-life reforms for service members and their families while compromising defense policy legislation. Members of Congress once again rejected a proposal to expand eligibility for the basic needs allowance by removing basic allowance for housing from income calculations. Most lower-income service members don’t qualify for the stipend due to their housing allowance pushing them above the income threshold. While the program has had a low participation rate from the start, the Pentagon’s own survey estimates that about one-in-four service members struggle with food insecurity. Lawmakers also rejected a Senate-backed pilot program proposal to provide coupons to junior enlisted service members to purchase food at commissaries.
  (Lawmakers drop several quality-of-life reforms from final defense policy bill - Federal News Network)
• Agencies will soon see a more streamlined process when giving bonuses to their employees. The Office of Personnel Management is transferring the approval process for pay incentives off of its own plate, and instead making it the responsibility of individual agencies. The goal is to make it easier to offer bonuses to employees, and free up time for OPM to focus on other priorities. Despite the process change, OPM said it “does not know” if agencies will actually offer more recruitment or relocation incentives as a result. The final rule implementing the changes comes after OPM first proposed regulations in 2023.
  (OPM seeks to reduce ‘administrative burden’ by tweaking bonus approval process - Federal News Network)
• A new “Tech Force” hiring program from the Trump administration seeks to bring more technical expertise into the government’s ranks. The Office of Personnel Management said the new program will recruit 1,000 employees, for two years each, to work on IT modernization projects at various agencies. The new hiring initiative comes after more than 300,000 employees left government this year, due to the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the workforce.
  (OPM seeks early-career talent for ‘Tech Force’ federal hiring initiative - Federal News Network)
• The future of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is up in the air after a turbulent year. Former FEMA leaders said the agency needs clarity to move forward. Last week, the Trump administration delayed the release of the FEMA Review Council’s recommendations. Speaking at an event on Monday, former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor said the report was going to serve as a “north star” for the agency. “It was going to offer predictability to FEMA and to the entire emergency management enterprise that we were going to go somewhere transformative. And it hasn't happened, at least not yet. And I guess the biggest takeaway is, without the report, what happens next?” Gaynor said. White House officials canceled a scheduled FEMA Review Council meeting at the last minute on Friday. The council had been scheduled to vote on a draft of its final report.
  (Former FEMA leaders call for ‘clarity’ amid delayed council report - Federal News Network)
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is exploring workarounds to stricter rules on telework as a reasonable accommodation. CDC supervisors have instructed staff to email their medical documentation directly to Lynda Chapman, the agency’s chief operating officer, to “bypass” the traditional reasonable accommodation system. Chapman will decide if employees are eligible for 30 days of telework as an interim accommodation. Two CDC employees told Federal News Network that Chapman is only approving interim telework in a few circumstances, including recovery from surgery, pregnancy or chemotherapy.
  (As HHS restricts telework, CDC tells employees to ‘bypass’ reasonable accommodation process - Federal News Network)

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• The Pentagon inspector general found the Army and Navy miscalculated the number of low-scoring recruits entering the military through their preparatory programs. The watchdog found the services used recruits’ improved test scores instead of the scores they had when they first signed up. As a result, both services exceeded the legal limits of recruits with low test scores entering the program. The courses are designed to help recruits meet academic and physical standards before starting basic training. The services also failed to notify the Secretary of Defense and Congress that they had exceeded that limit, as required by law.
  (Army, Navy exceeded legal limits of low-scoring recruits in future prep courses - Defense Department IG)
• The Department of Homeland Security has named a leader to oversee projects under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Jaclyn Rubino is now serving as executive director of the newly created OB3 Principal Executive Office. Rubino was previously executive director of DHS’s Strategic Programs Division. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act provides DHS with approximately $190 billion through 2029. Most of the spending is concentrated on immigration enforcement and border security.
  (OB3 announcement - LinkedIn)
• Senate Democrats say they’re concerned about a stricter reasonable accommodation policy at the Department of Health and Human Services. The HHS reasonable accommodation policy requires an assistant secretary at the department to approve all telework, remote work or reassignment requests. The new policy said telework should not be granted as an interim accommodation. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) are leading colleagues in a letter against these changes. They say they’ve heard from federal employees who have been harmed by these decisions.
  (Letter to HHS Secretary Kennedy - Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.))
• The number of protests filed with GAO are down for a second straight year. Vendors filed 1,617 bid protests with the Government Accountability Office in fiscal 2025. That is a 7% decrease over the amount filed in 2024 and 17% fewer than in 2023. GAO's annual bid protest report to Congress released yesterday shows only 380 cases resulted in a decision, of which 53 were sustained. The most common reason for a sustained protest was unreasonable technical evaluation, followed by unreasonable cost or price evaluation, and then unreasonable rejection of proposals. The effectiveness rate, which shows the percentage of cases where the protestor received some sort of relief, remained at its traditional level of 52%. GAO also said it reviewed and closed 359 cases under its task and delivery order jurisdiction.
  (GAO sees decrease in number of protests filed in 2025 - Government Accountability Office)
• Veterans Affairs is launching a long-awaited reorganization of its health care operations. VA said the changes aren’t expected to result in a significant change in overall staffing levels. Internal documents earlier this year showed the VA is looking to put limits on how many currently vacant positions it will fill. VA said it’s briefed lawmakers on the reorganization. Implementation will take place over the next two years.
  (VA launches Veterans Health Administration reorganization - Department of Veterans Affairs)
• A bipartisan bill in the Senate would have the Commerce Department play a lead role in securing satellites from cyber threats. The Satellite Cybersecurity Act introduced last week would require Commerce to develop voluntary cybersecurity recommendations tailored to commercial satellites. It would also require the agency to create an online clearinghouse of cybersecurity best practices and other information that helps companies secure their systems. The bill was introduced by Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
  (Peters & Cornyn reintroduce legislation to protect commercial satellites from cybersecurity threats - Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee)
• Appeals court judges scrutinize Trump’s national security basis for collective bargaining rollback. The US. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is weighing what limits, if any, exist for President Donald Trump to classify which agencies are essential to national security, while rolling back collective bargaining rights in the process. Trump signed an executive order exempting many agencies from collective bargaining on the grounds that their mission is primarily based in national security. A Justice Department attorney representing the Trump administration said the president is the “expert” on which agencies meet this classification. But some members of a three-judge panel suggested the president’s designation is overly broad.
  (Appeals court judges scrutinize Trump’s national security basis for collective bargaining rollback - Federal News Network)
• For the second straight year, the House passed a bill to bring more rigor to how agencies oversee software licenses. And for the second straight year, it's unclear if the Senate will do the same. Under the Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act, agencies would have to create a software inventory and undergo an independent assessment of software license management practices and contracts. Lawmakers unanimously approved the bipartisan legislation yesterday. OMB would have to publish a governmentwide strategy for software modernization based on those audits.
  (House passes SAMOSA bill for second year in a row - Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio))
• The Defense Logistics Agency has launched a new major subordinate command aimed at improving how the military gets spare and repair parts. The command, known as DLA Weapons Support, merges the missions of DLA Aviation and DLA Land and Maritime into a single, unified organization. Agency leaders say the move is designed to standardize processes, reduce duplication and deliver faster, more cost-effective support to warfighters across the joint force. The new command will operate out of existing sites in Ohio and Virginia and the transition will continue over the next year.
  (DLA launches new weapons support command - DLA.mil)

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• More than 60% of the government’s security clearance data last year was either inaccurate or incomplete. That’s according to a recent review conducted by the Government Accountability Office. In a new report, GAO said delays and issues with IT systems continue to make the security clearance process a top management challenge in the federal government. The issue has remained on GAO’s High Risk List since 2018.
  (Personnel security clearances: Actions needed to address significant data reliability issues that impact oversight - Government Accountability Office)
• Amid the Trump administration’s workforce reductions, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor touts that 92% of departing feds left voluntarily. But in response to Kupor’s comments, James Walkinshaw (D-Va) said calling the departures “voluntary” is misleading. Walkinshaw argues that many federal employees were coerced into leaving, rather than choosing to go on their own. Nothing about that, the congressman said, was voluntary.
  (Response to OPM Director Scott Kupor on federal workforce comments - Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.))
• The Department of the Navy is pouring nearly half a billion dollars into artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies to modernize shipbuilding operations. The Shipbuilding Operating System, or Ship OS, will leverage Palantir’s software to aggregate data from enterprise resource planning systems, legacy databases and operational sources to identify bottlenecks, streamline workflows and support proactive risk mitigation. Early pilot deployments of these AI capabilities have already shown some results, including reducing submarine schedule planning at General Dynamics Electric Boat from 160 manual hours to under 10 minutes. At Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, material review times dropped from weeks to less than an hour. The initial rollout will focus on the Submarine Industrial Base, with plans to expand to surface ship programs as the Navy validates and scales the approach.
  (Navy pours nearly $500 million into AI to modernize shipbuilding - Navy.mil)
• Agencies have new acquisition considerations when buying artificial intelligence capabilities. Agencies have three months to update their acquisition clauses and policies to ensure contracts for large language models comply with two overarching principles. In a new memo, OMB said by March 11, agencies must ensure new contracts for AI tools include the requirements that demonstrate the LLMs are truth seeking and ideologically neutral. OMB detailed how agencies can ensure both commercial and internally developed LLMs meet these two principles. Agencies should ask vendors for documentation that includes enough information to assess a vendor’s risk management actions at the model, system and/or application level to establish compliance with these principles. As for existing contracts for LLMs, agencies must add these new clauses prior to exercising an option period.
  (OMB outlines new procurement requirements for LLMs - Office of Management and Budget)
• Agencies are taking more advantage of financial management shared services than ever before. The Government Accountability Office found in a new report that agencies spent $183 million through the financial management marketplace in fiscal 2024. That is a $180 million increase over 2023. The reason for this increase, auditors found, is that the number of providers and products in the financial management marketplace has grown over the past several years. There are now 25 providers that are offering 139 different services. GAO said this is the first in a series of reports addressing shared services as required by the 2023 spending bill.
  (Use of financial management shared services on the rise - Government Accountability Office)
• The Department of Homeland Security is moving to strip airport security screeners of union rights for the second time this year. The Transportation Security Administration said it will officially rescind a collective bargaining agreement for transportation security officers in early January. That decision comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem signed a new determination that TSA staff should not be allowed to participate in collective bargaining. In June, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that blocked DHS’s previous attempt to dissolve TSA’s collective bargaining agreement. The American Federation of Government Employees has vowed to fight Noem’s latest action in court as well.
  (DHS moves to eliminate TSA collective bargaining agreement, again - Federal News Network)
• Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would codify a part of President Donald Trump’s AI Action Plan and allow the Defense Department to establish a National Security and Defense AI Institute to advance defense innovation, workforce development and AI readiness. Lawmakers say the institute would “host testbeds for defense-related AI data management, reliable AI, and AI readiness.” It would also play an important role in developing a skilled workforce capable of implementing these emerging technologies. A companion bill led by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) has already passed the House as part of the annual defense policy bill.
  (Lawmakers move to stand up a Defense AI Institute - Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas))
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is out with new cyber performance goals for tens of thousands of organizations across the country. CISA’s Cybersecurity Performance Goals 2.0 document is geared toward critical infrastructure sectors. The agency updated the voluntary goals last week to be more in line with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s latest Cybersecurity Framework. CISA’s updated goals include new guidance on governance, emerging threats and third-party risks. Other agencies have used CISA’s performance goals to set cybersecurity standards and requirements for specific sectors.
  (CISA unveils enhanced cross sector cybersecurity performance goals - Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency)

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• Federal retirement numbers at the Office of Personnel Management are continuing to skyrocket. In November, OPM took in another 23,000 applications from retiring employees. That’s on top of more than 20,000 that entered OPM’s systems in October. Together, those numbers mean retirement applications are triple the volume they were at this time last year. In total, OPM’s retirement inventory is now closing in on 50,000 applications that are still awaiting finalization.
  (November 2025 retirement processing report - Office of Personnel Management)
• A group of lawmakers found the Pentagon has diverted at least $2 billion intended for barracks repairs, school upgrades and training programs to support the southern border mission. The department shifted approximately $1.3 billion to pay for the deployment of troops to the border. About $420 million was moved to assist with immigration detention operations and over $40 million was used to pay for military deportation flights. The diverted funds were meant to support projects including elementary schools at Fort Knox, an ambulatory care center and dental clinic, a jet-training facility in Mississippi and Marine barracks in Japan. DoD also sent the 10th Mountain Division, which was trained to conduct large-scale combat operations, to the border.
  (DoD diverts over $2 billion to fund border mission, lawmakers say - Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.))
• Next week marks the busiest week of the year for the Postal Service. USPS said it’s prepared to handle millions packages and pieces of mail during its peak season. But it’s also setting deadlines to ensure delivery before Christmas. USPS generally recommends sending first-class mail and Ground Advantage packages no later than Dec. 17 to ensure delivery by Dec. 25. USPS said customers should also allow addition time for shipping to or from Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and U.S Territories.
  (The Postal Service Is ready for the busiest week of 2025 - U.S. Postal Service)
• The Defense Department is accelerating its preparation for post-quantum cryptography. The Pentagon's CIO is preparing a new requirement for all military services and defense agencies to identify, inventory and report all cryptography used in any type of system. But before the CIO releases that policy, Katie Arrington, who is performing the duties of the DoD CIO, said in a new memo that each component must identify key personnel who will be responsible for migration to PQC and associated coordination. These leads will oversee the creation and maintenance of the system inventory, as well as several other responsibilities including PQC acquisition requirements within the component, quantum-attack risk management plans and the tracking of all tests, evaluation and PQC readiness efforts relevant to the component's systems.
  (DoD CIO tells services, agencies how to get ready for post-quantum cryptography - Defense Department)
• Tenable became the third contractor to sign a OneGov agreement with the General Services Administration this month. Under the deal announced yesterday, Tenable will offer its cloud security enterprise solution to agencies at a 65% discount off its list price on the GSA schedule. The prices are good through March 2027, but agencies would see 3% annual increase in their prices on multiple-year task orders. GSA also signed OneGov deals with Palo Alto Networks and SAP in December. In all, 17 vendors now have OneGov deals.
  (Tenable becomes third vendor to sign OneGov deal this month - General Services Administration)
• A bill to restore collective bargaining for federal employees has cleared the House. All House Democrats, along with 20 Republicans, voted in favor of the Protect America’s Workforce Act, resulting in a vote of 231-195 to pass the legislation. If enacted, the bill would nullify President Donald Trump’s executive orders to cancel collective bargaining agreements at most agencies. Federal unions are now urging the Senate to take up the companion bill.
  (House passes bill to restore collective bargaining for federal employees - Federal News Network)
• Service members will see a 4.2% average increase in their basic allowance for housing in 2026. But the actual increases military households will receive will vary depending on where they are stationed and their pay grades. The calculation of the allowance is built to cover approximately 95% of average costs for off-base housing and utilities, leaving a roughly 5% out-of-pocket expense for service members. In 2026, these amounts range from $93 to $212. The new housing allowance rates will take effect Jan. 1, 2026. The department estimates it will pay $29.9 billion in housing allowances to approximately one million service members.
  (Service members will receive a 4.2% boost in housing allowance in 2026 - Federal News Network)
• Hundreds of federal office space leases were terminated this year, but still far from targets set by the Department of Government Efficiency. GSA carried out 260 lease terminations, saving about $112 million in annual costs. That’s about 30% of the approximately 900 lease terminations it sent to landlords earlier this year. GSA began its mass termination of governmentwide leases in the early days of the Trump administration. But by March, the agency began walking back hundreds of them. Former DOGE leader Elon Musk said in a recent interview that DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts were “somewhat successful.”
  (GSA terminated hundreds of federal office space leases, but far less than DOGE targets - Federal News Network)

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• The House has passed a $900 billion defense policy bill, which includes a 3.8% pay raise for service members. The must-pass legislation now heads to the Senate. Once it clears the chamber, the bill will go to President Donald Trump for his signature. The bill seeks to streamline the way the Pentagon buys its capabilities. Congressional leaders said the legislation would deliver “the most significant acquisition reforms in a generation.” It also fully supports Trump’s priorities, including banning all diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the Defense Department and fully funding the department’s border security efforts.
  (Houses overwhelmingly passes the 2026 NDAA, sending bill to Senate - House Armed Services Committee)
• The Office of Federal Procurement Policy wants to hear from you. As part of its rewrite of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, OFPP Administrator Kevin Rhodes is asking acquisition experts in and out of government for help in identifying acquisition practices that agencies should start, stop, continue, adjust or scale. Rhodes said in a new post on the Ideascale platform that the ideas should focus on strengthening stewardship, speeding up buying, reducing costs, increasing competition and supporting better outcomes. He hopes these ideas will better inform regulatory drafting of the streamlined FAR and the operational practices agencies will rely on going forward. OFPP wants suggestions by Jan. 7, 2026.
  (OFPP seeks input on acquisition best practices - Office of Federal Procur)
• The top official at the Office of Personnel Management is pushing back against warnings from the agency's inspector general. A recent OIG report found that staffing reductions at OPM this year have created gaps in the agency’s ability to operate effectively. In response, though, OPM Director Scott Kupor argued that the agency's past workforce size was inflated. He called the current staffing levels “appropriate,” after the agency lost one-third of its employees this year.
  (Agency comments on the OIG “top management challenges” report - Office of Personnel Management)
• More than a dozen federal statistical agencies are falling behind on producing high-quality data sets that shape the U.S. economy and government policy. Most statistical agencies lost 20% to 30% of their staff this year, which has led to some public-facing data sets being delayed, suspended or canceled. That’s according to an annual report from the American Statistical Association. President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics this summer after the agency produced a monthly jobs report that showed hiring had slowed. The Department of Government Efficiency oversaw the elimination of five surveys at the Census Bureau that DOGE deemed "wasteful."
  (‘Bedrock’ federal data sets are disappearing, as statistical agencies face upheaval - Federal News Network)
• The Agriculture Department said it received mostly negative feedback on its reorganization plans. USDA plans to relocate more than half of its D.C.-area employees to five regions across the country. The agency said it received more than 14,000 public comments about its relocation plans. More than 80% of them criticized elements of the plan. About 5% expressed positive sentiment and about 7% were neutral.
  (USDA reorganization - Agriculture Department)
• One agency got a boost of funding for IT modernization before the Technology Modernization Fund expires. The TMF officially expires on Friday, meaning the board can only continue to oversee and fund existing awards. But the TMF Board made one more investment before the impending deadline. The National Nuclear Security Administration earned $28.3 million for three separate, but interrelated, modernization projects. Most of the funding, about $23 million, will go to modernizing the AI infrastructure for NNSA’s classified environment. Additionally, NNSA will use the remaining $5 million to update two other systems, FireGuard and the Turbo Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) radiological assessment tool.
  (NNSA receives funding before TMF authorization sunsets - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wants to deepen its engagement with industry. Companies can sign up to share information with CISA through the agency’s new Industry Engagement Platform. The goal of the online platform is to allow CISA staff to more easily engage with companies, nonprofits and academia on new innovations and technology developments. CISA is particularly interested in IT and security controls, data analytics, artificial intelligence and post-quantum security. The cyber agency eventually wants to move to just one account for engaging across all of its services and information sharing platforms.
  (CISA looks for ‘deep engagement’ with innovators via new platform - Federal News Network)
• Several key acquisition provisions, including measures on pricing transparency, oversight of major programs and Other Transaction Authorities, were dropped from the final version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill. Both the House and Senate sought to close the loophole that allows companies to submit cost and pricing data after a contract price is agreed upon, but the proposal was removed from the final bill. House-led efforts to rein in cost overruns and strengthen oversight of major defense acquisition programs were also blocked during negotiations. Also left out is a House proposal to curb the outsized influence of tech giants over the cloud computing and artificial intelligence defense contracting space.
  (Here are key acquisition provisions dropped from the NDAA - Federal News Network)

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• Recent changes to the Postal Service’s network could mean slower deliveries of prescription drugs in the mail. A study from the Brookings Institution found 6% of Americans live far away from a brick-and-mortar pharmacy, rely heavily on mail-order prescriptions and live in areas impacted by USPS consolidation. Brookings also found that nearly half of all Americans face at least one of those scenarios. USPS this year has been running trucks less often between its processing plants and post offices to transport mail and packages.
  (How USPS network changes threaten prescription drug access for vulnerable populations - Brookings Institution)
• Lawmakers want the Defense Department to do away with duplicative cybersecurity regulations. The compromise defense authorization bill released over the weekend would direct the Pentagon to harmonize all cybersecurity requirements that apply to the defense industrial base. The deadline for harmonizing those regulations would be June 1. The goal is to eliminate inconsistent and duplicative cyber requirements across DoD and the military services. That legislative push comes as the Pentagon starts to roll out the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC, requirements across its contracts.
  (NDAA compromise text - House Armed Services Committee)
• Former federal employees are warning of what they say is the “destruction” of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. In a letter penned Tuesday, more than 200 civil rights attorneys who left government this year said they did not want to leave their jobs, but that political leaders at DOJ pressured them to go. The former employees warn that the Trump administration’s overhauls at DOJ have led to a loss of expertise. Their letter also raises concerns about the possibility of a greater exodus of career DOJ staff on the horizon.
  (Open letter on DOJ’s Civil Rights Division - Justice Connection)
• The Defense Department has launched GenAi.mil. The platform will put “frontier AI models” into the hands of warfighters. The department selected Google Cloud's Gemini for Government as the first AI deployed on the new platform. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said DoD personnel will be able to "conduct deep research, format documents and analyze video or imagery at unprecedented speed.” “The future of American warfare is here, and it’s spelled AI,” Hegseth said.
  (DoD unveils new GenAI platform, taps Google’s Gemini for first deployment - LinkedIn)
• The head of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s cyber workforce and education efforts is stepping down. Rodney Petersen said his last day will be Dec. 31. For the past 11 years, Petersen has served as director of NIST’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education Cybersecurity Workforce Framework program. Known as the “NICE Framework,” it provides a common language to describe cybersecurity work and the knowledge and skills needed to complete that work. There’s no word yet on who will replace Petersen.
  (Rodney Petersen announces retirement after decades in cybersecurity education - National Institute of Standards and Technology)
• The government’s dispersed HR systems are on the verge of a major transformation. By January, the Office of Personnel Management expects to award a contract that will eventually result in a cohesive HR system for all agencies. It’s not the first time OPM has attempted to merge the more than 100 disparate HR systems across government. But the current effort underway is different: “We’ve already brought experts from many different agencies into a steering committee that are helping us to set the strategy up front,” said Dianna Saxman, OPM’s associate director of HR Solutions.
  (OPM’s plan to unify disparate HR systems taking shape - Federal News Network)
• Despite broad bipartisan support, right-to-repair provisions that would have given service members the ability to fix their own equipment in the field were stripped from the compromise version of the 2026 defense policy bill after industry pushback. The Senate’s provision requiring contractors to provide the military with detailed repair and maintenance instructions was removed from the final text. The House’s data-as-a-service provision, which would have required the Defense Department to negotiate access to technical data and necessary software before signing a contract, was dropped from the bill as well. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) said they “support the Pentagon using the full extent of its existing authorities to insist on right to repair protections” when purchasing equipment from contractors.
  (Congress quietly strips right-to-repair provisions from 2026 NDAA despite wide support - Federal News Network)
• The IRS is setting new limits on telework for employees who are facing a variety of temporary hardships. The IRS said hardship-based requests for full-time telework that employees submitted, but were still awaiting approval, will be “closed,” effective immediately. An agency memo cites the Trump administration’s return-to-office mandate as the reason for the policy change. Employees can still submit hardship-based telework requests, but approvals must come from the agency’s leadership or its human capital office, which is inundated with paperwork from employees retiring under the deferred resignation program.
  (IRS closes out ‘hardship’-based requests for telework, citing return-to-office mandate - Federal News Network)

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• The nation’s largest federal employee union is urging Congress to vote against the House rule for the 2026 Defense policy bill. The American Federation of Government Employees said negotiators removed a bipartisan House provision that would have restored collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of Defense Department civilian employees. The union said removing that language means the legislation fails to protect basic rights of workers who maintain ships and aircraft and support service members. AFGE is calling on lawmakers to reject the procedural rule and restore the worker protections before the National Defense Authorization Act moves forward.
  (AFGE urges Congress to reject NDAA rule after union protections are removed - AFGE)
• The top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee is asking the Postal Service to ensure service members get holiday packages on time. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said hundreds of holiday care packages sent to troops overseas were returned to sender. About 100 of those care packages sent through the nonprofit Boxes to Boots are still missing in transit. Blumenthal is asking Postmaster General David Steiner to provide guidance to military families and organizations who are encountering similar obstacles and ensure timely delivery of these care packages.
  (Senator calls for Postal Service to guarantee holiday packages for service members - Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.))
• The Trump administration is trying to reduce the federal government’s real estate footprint. A congressional committee will take a closer look at those efforts on Thursday. A subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hear from the acting head of the General Services Administration’s Public Buildings Service. It will also hear from the Government Accountability Office and the Public Buildings Reform Board which has helped GSA identify underutilized federal office space.
  (Subcommittee to hold hearing on consolidating federal real estate - House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee)
• The Technology Modernization Fund will expire in three days. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program remains on the shelf. Congress chose not to include reauthorization language for either program in the compromise version of the 2026 defense authorization bill released yesterday. House lawmakers pushed to get the TMF extension provision added during conference, but were unsuccessful. Meanwhile lawmakers are still at odds over the future of the SBIR program, which saw its authorization expire on September 30. Both chambers of Congress are expected to vote on the NDAA later this week.
  (NDAA forgoes extending TMF, reauthorizing SBIR - House Armed Services Committee )
• The President's Management Agenda is finally out. Eric Ueland, Office of Management and Budget deputy director for management, laid out eight initiatives across three broad categories that are the administration's key management reform objectives. The priorities include consolidating and standardizing systems, hiring based on skills and merit and finding cost-effective locations for agency buildings. A senior OMB official told Federal News Network that the PMA takes the president’s promises, as well as the administration’s work already underway, and creates a framework to “institutionalize” those end goals.
  (Trump’s government management vision centers on elimination, accountability - Federal News Network)
• A powerful senator is calling for agencies to stop all sole source 8(a) contracts. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the chairwoman of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, told 22 agencies to pause any further 8(a) sole source awards and review all current contracts for potential fraud. In a letter sent to agency leaders yesterday, Ernst said 8(a) sole source contracts are a fraud magnet. Ernst wants to know by December 22 from each agency whether they will suspend the program's sole source contracts. The letter comes two weeks after Ernst introduced legislation that would suspend all 8(a) sole source contracts until SBA completes its ongoing audit.
  (Ernst presses agencies to pause 8(a) sole source awards - Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa))
• A compromise version of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act includes several key civilian personnel reforms that could change how the Defense Department hires and manages its civilian workforce. The draft text includes a provision that would allow the Defense Department to promote employees without having to satisfy minimum time-in-grade requirements before being eligible for promotion. The bill would also allow the Defense Department to use skill-based assessments to determine whether applicants are qualified for open positions. In addition, the legislation expands which positions DoD can hire using special cyber authorities, as well as significantly increases the maximum pay DoD can offer for cyber talent.
  (Compromise NDAA would let DoD promote civilians faster, increase cyber pay - Federal News Network)

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• There's more discouraging news for the Pentagon’s prospects of obtaining a clean financial audit by the current 2028 deadline. A new evaluation by the Defense Department inspector general found the department’s plan to remediate one of its key, longstanding material weaknesses — an inability to keep track of government property in the possession of contractors — doesn’t appear to be working. DoD intended to fix the problem largely by tracking the contractor-managed property in a software module within the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment. But according to the IG, key DoD leaders haven’t mandated the use of that module, and the military services haven’t updated their own systems to properly interface with it.
  (DoD goal for clean 2028 audit in jeapardy - DoD Inspector General)
• Today marks the final day of Open Season. Enrollees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program have until midnight tonight to make any desired changes to their health insurance options. The open enrollment period also applies to Postal Service employees, as well as those with dental and vision coverage. Any changes made during Open Season will take effect in January.
  (Final day of Open Season - Office of Personnel Management)
• Army Cyber Command has a new leader. Lt. Gen. Christopher Eubank officially assumed command during a ceremony on Dec. 3 at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Eubank took over for Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, who is retiring after nearly 38 years of service and three years leading Army Cyber Command. Eubank previously served as special assistant to the commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command. He also led the Army’s Network Enterprise Technology Command. In his new role, Eubank will lead Army cyber operations and provide Army forces to U.S. Cyber Command.
  (Eubank takes the helm of Army Cyber Command - Army.mil)
• The Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications and Network, or PEO C3N, is undergoing another major reorganization. As part of the Army and Defense Department-wide acquisition reform efforts, the program executive office is changing its name to the "Capability Program Executive Command, Control, Communications and Network,” or CPE C3N. The office is realigning its structure to better support the Army’s Next Generation Command and Control effort. Brig. Gen. Jack Taylor will continue to lead the organization as the capability program executive. As part of the overhaul, the organization is standing up new project offices focused on C2 applications, data and AI, infrastructure and transport.
  (Army to overhaul its PEO C3N - Army.mil)
• An appeals court has ruled in favor of President Donald Trump’s firings of two Democratic board members. The split 2-to-1 decision of the appeals court panel has no immediate effect, since the removals of Cathy Harris at the Merit Systems Protection Board, and Gwynne Wilcox at the National Labor Relations Board, were already finalized. But Friday’s decision comes as the Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments on whether to overturn a 90-year-old ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor. If the decision is overturned, it has the potential to expand the president’s power in shaping independent agencies and may further reinforce the outcomes of Harris' and Wilcox’s terminations.
  (Appeals court backs Trump’s firings of MSPB, NLRB members - Federal News Network)
• Palo Alto Networks is joining the ever-growing list of vendors signing up for GSA's OneGov program. The cybersecurity company will now offer agencies up to a 60% discount from its schedule prices for three of its cyber tools. Agencies can now buy Palo Alto's software next generation firewall, its secure access service edge (SASE) solution and its code to cloud platform for deep discounts through January 2028. This is GSA's fifteenth OneGov agreement since it launched the program in April. Last week, GSA also signed a similar deeply discounted deal with SAP.
  (Palo Alto Networks joins GSA's OneGov program - General Services Administration)
• Small businesses in the 8(a) program will now have a busy holiday season. The Small Business Administration is asking participants in the 8(a) contracting program for a trove of data as part of the agency's ongoing audit of the long-standing socioeconomic initiative. In a letter sent to more than 4,300 8(a) firms, SBA set a deadline of Jan. 5, 2026, for these companies to deliver 13 data sets. These include everything from a copy of the all 8(a) contracts for the last three fiscal years to full financial statements to their full general ledger. SBA said firms that fail to meet the deadline may lose their eligibility to participate in the 8(a) program and could face further investigative or remedial actions.
  (SBA moves to next phase of 8(a) program investigation - Small Business Administration )
• A top human resources official at the State Department who played a major role in the agency’s widespread reduction in force this summer is moving on to a new role. Lew Olowski, the chief human capital officer in the Bureau of Personnel and Training, is stepping down from that role to become the senior bureau official for the Office of Foreign Missions, according to two sources. The State Department declined to provide an on-the-record comment.
  (Lew Olowski, the chief human capital officer in the Bureau of Personnel and Training, is stepping down - State Department)

The post DoD goal for clean 2028 audit in jeopardy, IG finds first appeared on Federal News Network.

• More moves to reorganize the Army take effect today. The new Army Western Hemisphere Command will officially come into being with its headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The new organization combines the existing U.S. Army North, U.S. Army South and Army Forces Command under one umbrella before those organizations are formally disestablished next October. The new command will also absorb the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, Air Traffic Services Command and the 1st Army.
  (More moves to reorganize the Army take effect today - U.S. Army)
• Workforce reductions have become a top challenge at the Office of Personnel Management, according to an agency watchdog. OPM’s inspector general said the agency’s rapid staffing losses this year have created gaps in its ability to operate effectively. According to OPM, the reductions are meant to enhance efficiency. But a new IG report warns that the staffing losses could lead to significant challenges and disruptions in the agency’s work. OPM is on track to lose more than one-third of its entire workforce by the end of the year.
  (Top management challenges for fiscal year 2026 - Office of Personnel Management, Office of Inspector General)
• Close to two-thirds of Americans believe management of the federal government has been heading in the wrong direction. A majority also says the government is operating worse now than it was a year ago. The new findings from the Partnership for Public Service indicate that much of the public is pessimistic about the impacts of the Trump administration’s federal workforce cuts. In a recent survey from the Partnership, one-quarter of respondents said they believe the government is moving in the right direction.
  (Survey of Americans on management of federal government - Partnership for Public Service)
• Professional services contractors get ready: OASIS+ Phase 2 is here. The General Services Administration is adding five new domains to the existing multiple award contract and opening all new and existing functional areas for bids from new companies in January. GSA said the five new domains under OASIS+ Phase 2 will include business administration, financial services, human capital, marketing and public relations, and social services. Vendors should be on the look out for a pre-amendment notice on SAM.gov around December 16, which will detail the draft scorecards for all domains.
  (OASIS+ phase 2 is here - General Services Administration)
• The Department of Health and Human Services is setting new restrictions on telework as a reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities. A new HHS-wide reasonable accommodation policy says all requests for telework, remote work or reassignment must be reviewed and approved by an assistant secretary or a higher-level official. Frontline supervisors no longer have the authority to make those decisions. A memo from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says all telework related to reasonable accommodations will be repealed.
  (CDC tells staff telework reasonable accommodations ‘will be repealed,’ as HHS sets stricter rules - Federal News Network)
• Unions are asking a federal court to reverse more layoffs than agencies have allowed so far. An amendment to an ongoing lawsuit asks a federal judge in San Francisco to reverse more reductions in force under a spending deal that ended the recent government shutdown. The continuing resolution states agencies can’t use federal funds to carry out RIFs between mid-November and the end of January. But agencies have only reinstated federal employees who received RIF notices between October 1 and November 12. The amended lawsuit seeks to force the departments of State, Education and Defense, as well as the Small Business Administration and the General Services Administration to rescind more RIFs.
  (Unions file emergency request with court to block State Dept layoffs, reverse RIFs at other agencies - Federal News Network)
• The Pentagon inspector general’s long-awaited report on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal app to discuss operational details concluded that Hegseth “sent sensitive, nonpublic, operational information” from his personal cell phone, which violates Defense Department rules that prohibit the use of personal devices and nonapproved apps for official business. The IG also determined that Hegseth’s use of a personal device for official work “risks potential compromise of sensitive DoD information, which could cause harm to DoD personnel and mission objectives.” The Pentagon only provided a partial copy of messages from Hegseth’s personal cell phone. The IG relied on the transcript of the public chat posted by The Atlantic for this investigation. The IG said Hegseth declined to be interviewed for this evaluation. Meanwhile, the Pentagon said the report is a “total exoneration” of Hegseth and that “the case is closed.”
  (Hegseth's use of Signal violated information sharing rules, risked troops' safety, DoD IG finds - Department of Defense)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is urging agencies and industry to take action against a new cyber threat from China. At least eight organizations, including federal agencies, IT companies and critical infrastructure providers, have fallen victim to a new and sophisticated malware attack. CISA is telling all organizations to take action to protect their systems from BRICKSTORM. Nick Andersen, the executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, said the malware could enable long term access, disruption and potential sabotage. "BRICKSTORM is a sophisticated malware," he said. "It has advanced functionality to conceal communications, move laterally and tunnel into victim networks. It can also automatically reinstall or restart the malware if disrupted." CISA issued a new analysis and recommendations yesterday for how organizations can protect themselves from BRICKSTORM.
  (Agencies, IT companies impacted by latest malware from China - Federal News Network)

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• The Office of Personnel Management is requiring all federal supervisors to enroll in a new training program on performance management. A new memo said the mandatory training will cover how to both reward and discipline employees, as well as how to create effective performance plans. All supervisors are required to complete OPM's new training by Feb. 9, 2026.
  (New governmentwide supervisory training - Office of Personnel Management)
• The Missile Defense Agency has tapped more than 1,000 companies to support the Golden Dome initiative. The first round of awards under the agency’s Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense, or SHIELD, contracting vehicle went to 1,014 “qualifying offerors.” Vendors that receive task orders will draw funds from a pool worth up to $151 billion. Officials say those order competitions won’t begin until all companies in the competitive range get the chance to "engage in meaningful discussions” with the agency.
  (MDA selects over 1,000 companies for Golden Dome SHIELD contract - SAM.gov)
• The top Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation, Space and Innovation is pressing Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to give a majority of the FAA workers a bonus. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said it was unfair to limit who received the $10,000 bonus when all 20,000 air traffic controllers and technicians worked during the 43-day shutdown. The FAA is giving a $10,000 award to approximately 2.4% of the air traffic controller workforce and to roughly 6% of the technician workforce. Duckworth said this creates a "perverse and dangerous incentive" that threatens to weaken national airspace system safety during future shutdowns.
  (Senator presses FAA to give more workers shutdown bonuses - Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.))
• Senate Democrats are ringing the alarm bells about the new deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and five other members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are calling for the White House to reverse its appointment of Paul Ingrassia to be the GSA deputy general counsel. The lawmakers say Ingrassia is unqualified for the position because of his very limited legal experience and because of his lengthy and public record of offensive statements. The Trump administration withdrew Ingrassia's nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel after statements he made became public about him having a "Nazi streak from time to time" and on other questionable topics. The Senators want a briefing from GSA and the White House Office of Presidential Personnel by Dec. 9.
  (Democrat Senators ring alarm bells over GSA deputy counsel - Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee)
• The Pentagon inspector general said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the messaging app Signal to discuss operational details of airstrikes in Yemen created a risk of exposing U.S. tactics and endangering service members. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell pushed back on the finding, and pointed to the “flawless execution and success” of Operation Rough Rider. Parnell also noted that the inspector general determined that no classified information was shared. “Case closed,” he said on social media platform X. CNN first reported the watchdog’s findings.
  (Pentagon IG says Hegseth’s use of Signal risked troops safety, DoD pushes back on the findings - Social media platform X)
• Former EPA employees are challenging the Trump administration, saying they were fired illegally. After being fired for signing a letter criticizing the Trump administration, six former EPA employees argue the agency’s actions violated the First Amendment. The employees were some of the 140 workers who signed the “declaration of dissent,” which resulted in around 20 employees being fired, and dozens more facing two-week suspensions. The fired feds are appealing their case to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
  (Fired EPA employees challenge agency, alleging free speech violations - Federal News Network)
• A recent survey shows most Americans agree agencies should make secure data-handling a top priority for the services they provide. But only 41% of those surveyed say they trust the government’s handling of their personal data. In a survey of more than 1,500 people conducted by Gartner, more than half say more transparency in how their data is used would improve their level of trust with the federal government’s online services.
  (Survey shows 61% of U.S. citizens rate secure data handling as extremely important for government digital services - Gartner)
• The State Department’s diplomatic workforce is feeling overburdened, under-resourced and more likely to leave in the next few years. In a survey of more than 2,100 active-duty Foreign Service employees, the American Foreign Service Association found 98% of respondents reported reduced morale this year. About 86% of respondents said workplace changes since January have affected their ability to advance U.S. diplomatic priorities. Before the Trump administration, about 17,000 active-duty Foreign Service officers worked for the State Department. AFSA estimates that nearly a quarter of them left this year when counting layoffs, retirements and those who accepted deferred resignation offers.
  ('A workplace crisis:' Nearly all Foreign Service employees report lower morale in union-led survey - Federal News Network)

The post There’s a new performance management training program for federal supervisors first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Federal executives may soon see even more changes coming from the Trump administration. The Office of Personnel Management is now encouraging agencies to consider possible reassignments of Senior Executive Service members. In a new memo, OPM argued that the SES has not served as a “mobile corps” of managers, and members are instead being “entrenched” at agencies. The new memo comes after OPM also advised agencies to consider lowering their staffing allocations for senior-level positions.
  (Guidance on Senior Executive Service reassignments - Office of Personnel Management)
• More than 118,000 Defense Department employees under the Federal Wage System are finally getting their long-delayed 2024 pay raise. The Pentagon’s Wage Committee met last week for the first time this year and approved updates to roughly 1,600 wage schedules across 250 wage areas. The panel had been unable to meet since March, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth paused all advisory committees for a broader review. Wage grade employees haven’t received a pay increase since 2023. The approved pay raises will be retroactive, and may not show up in paychecks until January 2026.
  (DoD Wage Grade workers to finally received long-delayed pay raises - AFGE)
• The Pentagon said it’s ready to launch a new plan to spend about $1 billion on small, inexpensive drones over the next two years. A request for information the Defense Department issued to industry this week ask for input on the possibility of building 300,000 small drones for one-way attack missions. DoD wants to start testing potential systems by February as part of a series of “gauntlets.” Up to 12 vendors could get awards after the first gauntlet.
  (Pentagon launches plan to spend $1B on small drones - Department of Defense)
• A bill to overhaul the federal probationary period has cleared a hurdle in the House. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced the so-called EQUALS Act along party lines on Tuesday. If enacted, the bill would double the length of the probationary period from one year to two years for most new federal hires. Committee Democrats criticized the legislation, saying it could open the door to more terminations of probationary workers. The EQUALS Act was one of about a dozen federal workforce bills the Oversight committee approved for further consideration in the House.
  (Committee Republicans advance House bill to overhaul the federal probationary period - Federal News Network)
• Thousands of post offices across the country have closed over the past few decades, according to a recent data analysis. The startup Use Postal estimates that 8,000 post offices have closed since the 1960s. It also estimates that out of the nearly 40,000 to have existed, about 67% of them are still operational to this day. Post office closures have disproportionately impacted states like Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia.
  (Post office closures: Where USPS post offices could disappear first - Use Postal)
• The State Department is telling employees targeted by mass layoffs this summer that their official separation date is imminent. The department’s human resources office told laid off Foreign Service employees that they will be officially separated from the agency this Friday. State Department attorneys determined that a recent stopgap spending bill passed by Congress does not require the agency to rescind any RIF notices that were sent before the government shutdown. These Foreign Service employees were originally on track to be separated from the agency on Nov. 10. But the department said it’s extending their administrative leave to address “administrative errors."
  (State Dept finalizes mass layoffs, says employees won’t be reinstated under shutdown-ending deal - Federal News Network)
• The General Services Administration made its 14th deal under its OneGov initiative. Through a new contract with SAP, agencies would receive up to an 80% discount off of Schedule prices for the company's database, integration, analytics and cloud software titles. GSA said this could save the government $165 million dollars over the agreement's 18-month duration, calculated against current government rates. GSA said this agreement is available to existing SAP customers for renewals, expansions or modernization projects.
  (GSA adds SAP to its OneGov program - General Services Administration)
• The federal offices are back open and hundreds of thousands of federal workers have returned to work after the longest shutdown in history. But nothing is back to normal. Federal workers say morale and trust in leadership are at an all-time low, tensions are high between furloughed staff and those who worked through the shutdown, schedules are slipping and projects are being pushed back. More people are accelerating their retirement plans or leaving federal service altogether. But the recent shutdown has exacerbated the existing problems, and added to what federal workers described as an already extremely trying year for the federal workforce. “As if morale wasn’t already non-existent, it sure is now,” one government worker said.
  (‘The mission is dead’: Federal workers say the shutdown made an ‘extremely trying year’ worse - Federal News Network)

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• Most funds in the Thrift Savings Plan saw minimal growth in November, with 15 of 16 coming in higher than where they finished in October. But no fund saw an increase greater than 0.64% for the past 30 days. And only the S fund saw a month over month decline, dropping 0.45%. The I Fund remains the biggest winner for the year with a total increase of 28.54%, while four L Funds also produced returns of greater than 20% in 2025.
  (TSP returns slow in November, but remain mostly positive - TSP)
• The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles are rolling out on routes across the country. USPS said more than 35,000 of those vehicles are out on the road. That’s about a third of its new fleet. More than 100,000 vehicles will be deployed by 2028 and nearly half of them will be electric vehicles. Congress gave USPS $3 billion in 2022 to buy more electric vehicles than it could afford to buy on its own.
  (USPS is delivering its new fleet - USPS)
• The Trump administration is taking down yet another government program tailored toward early-career employees and talent development in the federal workforce. The Office of Personnel Management will soon sunset the Federal Academic Alliance. This is a governmentwide program that let federal employees access advanced degree opportunities at reduced tuition costs. The agency attributed its cancellation decision to a low participation rate, as well as more internal training options becoming available to employees over time. Employees currently in the program have until Jan. 19 to enroll into programs using the benefits through the end of their current academic term. OPM will shut the program website and other assets down by Jan. 30.
  (OPM sunsets ‘Academic Alliance’ - Office of Personnel Management)
• The Department of Health and Human Services faces a months-long backlog of reasonable accommodation requests from its employees. HHS said it will centralize the processing of reasonable accommodation requests on behalf of its component agencies. HHS said it’s taking on a backlog of more than 3,000 requests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s not clear how long it will take HHS to review each individual request. But the department said it will need about six to eight months to clear the backlog. A CDC memo said telework “should not be given as an interim accommodation,” while a reasonable accommodation request is under review.
  (HHS faces a months-long backlog of reasonable accommodation requests - Federal News Network)
• The Coast Guard is at risk of more cost overruns on one of its newest class of ships. That new warning comes from the Government Accountability Office, which said the service is pressing ahead with plans for its Offshore Patrol Cutter without a stable design. GAO said moving ahead with the second stage of the acquisition program too quickly could mean a repeat of some of the missteps the service suffered during the program’s first phase. In stage one, starting construction before designs were stabilized wound up leading to expensive rework.
  (Coast Guard risking cost overruns for Offshore Cutter - Government Accountability Office)
• The Defense Department is putting more than $400 million toward immediate barracks repairs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department is also launching more than $800 million in critical barracks renovations. Hegseth recently stood up a “barracks task force,” which he said has completed wall-to-wall assessments of facilities across the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force and the 18th Airborne Corps, with Reserve and National Guard inspections expected to wrap up by the end of January. “In our first 30 days, we've purchased new furnishings and mattresses for 81 barracks, reaching more than 15,000 service members, and we've executed $101 million of quality of life improvements since October 27 that includes new door locks in 10 barracks, affecting over 6,000 war fighters, new security systems in 13 barracks, which is peace of mind for another 1,500 plus service members. I'm getting monthly reports to confirm the work is actually getting accomplished.”
  (DoD to invest $400 million in immediate barracks repairs - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on X)
• The Marine Corps is encouraging qualified Marines to move into counterintelligence and human intelligence roles. The Corps’ Manpower and Reserve Affairs has identified these positions as a critical specialty. The service said the demand for Marines in counterintelligence and human intelligence roles will remain high for the foreseeable future. Officials say Marines selected for these roles will receive extensive training and have opportunities to support Joint Forces and interagency partners. Marines who make the switch could earn over $100,000 in bonuses.
  (Marine Corps ramps up effort to fill counterintelligence, human intelligence roles - MARADMIN message)
• The Defense Department wants to shake up how it works with value-added resellers. The Pentagon is considering placing a 5% cap on most fees charged by resellers starting with a specific special item number, or SIN, for IT products. A draft memo obtained by Federal News Network said this cap would only apply to IT products bought through GSA's schedule contract. The initial focus of this reseller cap would focus on SIN 33411, which is for the purchasing of new electronic equipment, including desktops, laptops and servers. DoD said it spent about $2 billion in fiscal 2024 through the GSA schedule on these technology products.
  (Draft memo details DoD's plans to cap most reseller fees - Federal News Network)

The post Thrift Savings Plan returns mostly positive in November first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Federal agencies are trying to eliminate underutilized space in their buildings. But a watchdog report found the Postal Service generally isn’t asking those same questions. The USPS inspector general’s office found the agency hasn’t collected space utilization data for more than 60% of its properties. USPS operates more than 34,000 properties across the country. The IG’s office said that by not collecting this data, the agency missed out on an opportunity to save nearly $15 million.
  (Excess and underutilized space - US Postal Service)
• The Trump administration is trying to ease concerns from federal managers who are worried about pushback against new employee performance standards. The Office of Personnel Management said there is an “extremely limited scope” for which managers would be personally liable when disciplining poor-performing employees. Most of the time, agencies themselves are held accountable for any performance-based actions. OPM’s clarification comes as the administration seeks to limit how many feds can be rated top performers and quickly discipline those deemed poor performers.
  (Personal liability for managers and supervisors conducting personnel management functions - Office of Personnel Management)
• As digital surveillance of federal employees becomes more widespread, the Government Accountability Office is alerting agencies to both positive and negative impacts. GAO said, for example, that monitoring employees remotely may help improve agency operations. But at the same time, there are potential consequences of watching employees’ work that closely. Increasing digital surveillance can negatively impact employees’ mental health, as well as lead to inaccurate assessments of employee performance.
  (Digital surveillance: Potential effects on workers and roles of federal agencies - Government Accountability Office)
• A federal court has indefinitely blocked the Trump executive order eliminating four small agencies. A federal judge in Rhode Island issued a permanent injunction barring the administration from taking any further action to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business and Development Agency, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and the Interagency Council on Homelessness. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March, eliminating these agencies “to the maximum extent” possible. The judge found the decision to conduct widespread layoffs and cuts at these agencies “undermined their ability” to perform functions required by law.
  (Federal court blocks Trump administration’s plan to scrap 4 small agencies - Federal News Network)
• In fiscal 2025, 317,000 employees left federal services. At the same time, agencies hired about 68,000 new employees. The Office of Personnel Management said the government exceeded the White House's goal of four reductions for every one new hire. There are now about 2.1 million federal employees. For 2026, agencies will submit annual headcount plans to OPM and OMB in the coming weeks. OPM said these plans should focus on the agency's critical mission objectives only and should be built from the bottom up to determine how many people are needed to meet their priorities.
  (317,000 feds have left the government this year, surpassing OPM's goal - Federal News Network)
• The Senate breathed some life into the Technology Modernization Fund for 2026. After receiving no new funding for the last two years, the TMF could be getting a small influx of new money. The Senate is allocating $5 million for the governmentwide IT modernization account in its version of the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill. The House version of the FSGG bill didn't include any new money for the TMF, meaning the final version would have to find a compromise between the two chambers of Congress. So far in 2025, the TMF Board has made only one new award for an agency modernization project.
  (Senate to give TMF $5M for 2026 - Senate Appropriations Committee)
• More than two weeks after the record-long government shutdown ended, some Defense Department civilian employees say they have yet to receive the back pay they are owed. At Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, more than 150 people in a unit of more than 400 civilians are still waiting for as much as four weeks of back pay. The Defense Department said all civilians whose updated time and attendance records have been received have been paid, and that anyone still experiencing issues should contact their Agency Customer Service Representative or supervisor. But several civilian workers told Federal News Network that going to a supervisor has not worked.
  (Some DoD civilians are still waiting for back pay weeks after shutdown’s end - Federal News Network)
• As the Defense Department moves to implement Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sweeping acquisition reforms, Space Force leaders warn that the depth of workforce cuts is threatening to cripple the service’s ability to execute them. Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant secretary for space acquisition at the Air Force, said that the service is “in a situation where it barely has enough acquirers to do all of the work that they have now.” The Trump administration push to reduce the size of the federal workforce has had an “outsized impact” on the Space Force. The service has lost nearly 14% of its civilian workforce, much of it coming from Space Systems Command, the Space Force’s acquisition hub.
  (Deep personnel cuts jeopardize Space Force’s ability to implement Hegseth’s acquisition reforms - Federal News Network)

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• Customer satisfaction with benefits and services provided by the federal government is higher than it’s been in nearly two decades. That’s despite a tumultuous year where agencies have seen a major downsizing of the federal workforce. Scores are higher on average, but the latest scorecard from the American Customer Satisfaction Index does show a few agencies are seeing lower scores. The Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Homeland Security are among the agencies with lower customer experience scores.
  (Citizen satisfaction with federal government climbs to highest score in nearly 20 years in fiscal year 2025 - American Customer Satisfaction Index )
• More information may soon come to light on how agencies are implementing some of President Donald Trump’s executive orders. OPM said it will conduct studies to find out the latest on the administration’s return-to-office policy. It’s also going to look into agencies’ removal of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs. OPM is asking all agencies to respond by the end of today with a point of contact who can provide further information for the studies.
  (Governmentwide studies on the president’s directives to end DEIA programs, and return to in-person work - Office of Personnel Management)
• A new audit found that the Defense Department is falling short in catching potential fraud, misuse and abuse of its government travel charge card program. The Pentagon’s office of inspector general said the department is not effectively using Citi’s Electronic Access System, the main tool to flag suspicious activity. Officials often could not or did not use the mandatory reports as required by regulations for oversight of the travel program due to unclear policies and inadequate training. As a result, thousands of travel card accounts were not closed or transferred when personnel left or changed units. The inspector general warned that until the Defense Travel Management Office improves the travel program controls, oversight officials will continue to miss opportunities to identify misuse or abuse within the program.
  (DoD failing to catch fraud and misuse of travel card program - Department of Defense IG)
• Operation Homefront distributed holiday meals to D.C. Guard members and their families as food-related assistance requests surge. As part of their Holiday Meals for Military program, the organization provided families with all the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, as well as Harris Teeter gift cards so families could purchase their protein of choice. With grocery prices rising and many service members still feeling the financial strain of the recent shutdown, the organization said demand for assistance has surged. Food requests alone are up 57% this year. “Our case work is up quadruple what it was 30 days ago," Operation Homefront said.
  (Operation Homefront distributes holiday meals to Guard members as food requests surge - Federal News Network)
• A Postal Service contractor has agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act. The Justice Department said Sky Lease falsely reported how quickly it was moving mail from domestic, Defense and State Department facilities to other locations around the world. Half the settlement amount is for restitution to the Postal Service.
  (Postal Service contractor agrees to pay more than a million dollars to settle False Claims Act allegations - Department of Justice)
• After reports that it was wrapping things up early, the Department of Government Efficiency said that's not the case. A DOGE spokesperson told Federal News Network that DOGE and its longer-term, tech-aligned counterpart, the U.S. DOGE Service, both remain and that the latter organization is moving ahead with a full slate of modernization projects. The spokesman also confirmed that Amy Gleason remains the acting administrator of USDS. Reuters published a story on Monday claiming that DOGE no longer exists. That’s about eight months ahead of the schedule set by President Trump.
  (DOGE and its long-term counterpart remain, with a full slate of modernization projects underway - Federal News Network)
• OPM said about 317,000 employees have left federal service so far in 2025, going beyond the Trump administration’s workforce reduction goals. Those departures compare to just 68,000 new hires during the same timeframe. OPM Director Scott Kupor also shared insight on newly required governmentwide headcount plans, which President Trump ordered as part of an initiative to make sure four employees leave federal service for every one that joins.
  (More than 3,600 feds get notice their shutdown RIFs are rescinded - Federal News Network)
• The Trump administration is telling agencies to rethink how many senior executives they really need. Agencies have until Dec. 19 to tell the Office of Personnel Management if they want to lower, or raise, how many staffing spots they’ll allocate for senior-level positions. A new memo from OPM said this headcount review is especially important, considering the major reductions to the federal workforce that have occurred this year. That may result in a corresponding need to reduce agency spots for senior executives, according to OPM.
  (Call for agency review of executive allocations - Office of Personnel Management)

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• The Trump administration said it’s finished updating federal employee records to remove some of the negative consequences of this year’s mass firing of probationary employees. Federal agencies say the personnel records have all been updated to reflect the fact that those workers were not fired for performance reasons. That step was ordered by a federal judge, who found agencies wrongly asserted that employees’ terminations were connected to their performance.
  (Trump administration says it's finished updated probationary employee files - Department of Justice)
• The Postal Service is starting fiscal 2026 with more red ink. USPS said it ended October with a $545 million net loss. That’s more than double the net loss it projected for the month. USPS ended fiscal 2025 with a $9 billion net loss. The agency is heading into its busy peak season, which is also when it brings in the most revenue.
  (USPS preliminary financial information - USPS)
• Recent reporting stating that the Department of Government Efficiency is dead has sparked some pushback from the Trump administration. Rather than DOGE being fully non-existent, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor said DOGE has simply taken on a new form. President Donald Trump’s initiative to cut the government’s size and spending may no longer have centralized leadership, but Kupor said the emphasis on efficiency remains “alive and well.”
  (Update on DOGE - Office of Personnel Management)
• Democratic lawmakers say agencies aren’t reinstating as many federal employees as they should be. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is leading the push for more RIF rescissions, along with several of his Democratic colleagues. They say employees who received reduction in force (RIF) notices before the government shutdown, but were on track to be officially separated from their agencies during the shutdown, should get their jobs back. This would all happen under layoff protection language in the spending bill Congress passed to end the funding lapse. Kaine was one of eight Democratic senators who broke ranks to pass the stopgap spending bill, only after Republicans agreed to include language that would protect federal employees from layoffs at least through Jan. 30, 2026.
  (Lawmakers say agencies aren’t reinstating enough laid-off employees under shutdown-ending deal - Federal News Network)
• A major update to one of the government’s largest data assets is on the horizon. The exact launch date for a new version of the Office of Personnel Management’s FedScope is unclear. But the agency said testing and development of the new website is underway, and a launch is “imminent.” Generally, the agency estimated that a new website for federal workforce data to replace FedScope would be published sometime “shortly after the new year.”
  (FedScope update “imminent” - Office of Personnel Management)
• A new audit found that the Defense Department failed to properly manage its financial reporting system after retiring 10 finance and accounting systems. The Pentagon’s office of inspector general said the reporting system continued using data from 57 obsolete files which contained $4.2 trillion in balances that were not required for Treasury reporting and served no financial purpose. This happened because the Defense Finance and Accounting Service did not archive balances from retired financial management systems and did not fully migrate required information into active systems. Auditors warn that this unnecessary and unsupported data is complicating an already difficult reporting process and could hinder the Pentagon’s ability to achieve a clean audit by 2028. The inspector general issued six recommendations, including archiving unused balances and ensuring required data is properly transferred and documented.
  (DoD failed to manage data after retiring ten financial management systems - Defense Department IG)
• President Trump is pushing a new initiative to use AI to solve engineering, energy and national security problems. An executive order the president signed yesterday launches what the White House is calling the “Genesis Mission.” The EO outlines a framework for collaboration between federal agencies, research institutions and private sector companies. The order tells the Energy Department and national labs to build a digital platform to concentrate the nation’s scientific data in one place.
  (New EO launches "Genesis Mission" AI initiative - Associated Press)
• Navy Secretary John Phelan is inviting venture capital firms and private investors to participate in an industry event introducing the Department of the Navy’s newly established Rapid Capabilities Office. The two-day event will cover the service’s most urgent operational challenges and how the new office plans to work with industry to solve those pressing issues. The first industry day, which will take place on Dec. 9, will be open to venture capital firms and technology companies. The second, classified session on Dec. 10 will welcome the investment community. The service is encouraging both existing and new industry partners to participate.
  (Navy opens door to venture capital firms, investors - SAM.gov)

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• The Federal Aviation Administration is giving 776 air traffic controllers and technicians a $10,000 bonus for working during the 44-day partial government shutdown. The bonuses will be sent to those employees who maintained perfect attendance during the shutdown. Recipients will receive an automated notification this week and receive their payment no later than December 9. The FAA's decision to offer bonuses to employees follows a similar effort by the Transportation Security Administration to reward transportation security officers who also worked during the government shutdown.
  (776 FAA employees to receive $10k bonus for working during shutdown - Federal Aviation Administration)
• The Agriculture Department is detailing how employees can express religion in the workplace. USDA leaders said employees are allowed to display religious items or form prayer groups at the office. Employees can also request different work schedules for religious observances, daily prayers or fasting periods. USDA will draw the line if employees start pushing unwelcome advances of discussing religion with coworkers. The new memo comes after President Trump ordered agencies to protect “religious expression” in the workplace.
  (USDA issues guidance to protect religious expression in the federal workplace - Agriculture Department)
• A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants the Defense Department to overhaul how it screens service members transitioning out of the military for mental health conditions. A new bill titled the Medical Integrity in Necessary Diagnostics (MIND) for Our Veterans Act of 2025, would require DoD and the Department of Veterans Affairs to only use validated, evidence-based tools for screening PTSD, alcohol misuse and violence risk during the separation process. Lawmakers said the current health assessments lack standardized and validated mental health screening, which undermines early identification and intervention efforts. The bill also pushes the department to consider adding a substance-use screening, citing its close link to mental health challenges.
  (Lawmakers seek to overhaul DoD mental health screenings for service members leaving - Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.))
• Two lawmakers want to fully exempt military pay from federal income tax. The Service Members Tax Relief Act seeks to eliminate federal income tax on all active-duty and reserve pay, as well as enlistment, retention, education bonuses and all special and incentive pays. The new bill goes well beyond previous tax-exemption proposals, which largely focus on exempting different types of bonuses from federal income tax. The lawmakers also introduced the Tax Cuts for Veterans Act of 2025, which would exclude all military retirement pay and veterans’ benefits from federal income taxes.
  (New bill seeks to exempt military pay from federal income tax - Federal News Network)
• The Federal Communications Commission reversed cybersecurity rules for telecommunications providers that were put forward following the sweeping “Salt Typhoon” hacks. In a 2-to-1 decision, the FCC rescinded a ruling and proposed rules last January that would've required telecom operators to secure their networks under Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. The commission said its previous ruling and proposed rule was based on flawed legal analysis and they proposed ineffective cybersecurity requirements. The FCC said its ruling comes after months of discussions with telecommunications providers about steps they have taken to harden their cyber defenses. Additionally, the FCC said it has taken other steps including creating a Council on National Security to improve communication with critical infrastructure sectors.
  (FCC reverses cyber rules that came from Salt Typhoon attack - Federal Communications Commission)
• The Trump administration said it’s finished the process of rescinding the reductions-in-force agencies issued during the government shutdown. That’s thanks to a provision in the continuing resolution that reopened the government last month. Language in the measure required agencies to treat those RIF notices as null and void, and notify the affected employees within five days. Court filings show agencies issued RIF notices to more than 3,600 people during the shutdown.
  (Trump administration says it’s finished rescinding RIFs agencies issued during the government shutdown - Federal News Network)
• The Merit Systems Protection Board is moving to a different location for its office in the national capital region. The former MSPB office in Arlington, Virginia, will be relocated to a building in downtown Washington, D.C. The move took place in mid-November for D.C.-based agency employees. MSPB said any feds with pending cases before the board don’t need to take action in response to the office move.
  (MSPB Washington Regional Office has moved - Merit Systems Protection Board)
• The chief information officer at the IRS appears to be taking the next steps in a reorganization after losing more than 25% of its staff earlier this year. In an email sent last week, the agency directed its IT workforce to complete a “technical skills assessment.” The agency’s CIO said the assessment is “not a performance rating,” and that individual results will not affect employees’ pay or grade.
  (IRS CIO directs IT workforce to complete "technical skills assessment" - Federal News Network)

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• A new survey found that nearly every service member living in privatized military housing has experienced serious problems in their home. Many of those issues go unresolved. The Change the Air Foundation recently found 97% of service members reported at least one significant problem in their military-provided home, with mold, mildew and water damage cited most frequently. Out of 3,401 respondents, three-quarters said their family’s health had been negatively impacted by their housing conditions, and nearly half said a medical provider had confirmed the connection.
  (New privatized military housing survey reveals a force-wide crisis - Change the Air Foundation)
• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is too often missing out on its final chance to identify improper payments through contracting. A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general found CMS routinely fell short in properly closing out contracts. Auditors say this puts billions of dollars at risk of waste, fraud and abuse. While CMS concurred with the IG's recommendations, officials say the report overstated the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse during the audit's five-year review period. The IG said contract closeout has long been a challenge for CMS, dating back to reports from 2007.
  (CMS at higher risk of improper payments due to contract closeout shortfalls - HHS IG)
• A transgender employee with the National Guard is suing the Trump administration over its bathroom policies in federal buildings. The administration earlier this year banned transgender and intersex federal employees from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. Following the ban, the employee’s supervisors told her she could no longer use the women’s restroom. The employee, who is represented by attorneys with Democracy Forward, alleged that the administration’s policy is employee discrimination in violation of Title VII.
  (Transgender federal worker sues Trump-Vance administration over federal bathroom ban - Democracy Forward)
• More federal employees who received layoff notices are looking to get their jobs back. Recently laid-off employees at the General Services Administration are calling on the agency to rescind their reduction-in-force notices, citing language in the recently passed continuing resolution that directed agencies to rescind the RIFs. Attorneys representing them say their clients received RIF notices before the government shutdown and were officially separated from the agency during the shutdown. Attorneys say lawmakers intended to reverse all RIF actions, not just RIF notices.
  (Laid-off GSA employees push for reinstatement, citing RIF protections in shutdown-ending deal - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is pulling the plug on plans to install electric vehicle chargers at its facilities. The Biden administration directed the VA to divert $77 million dollars from its construction and technology budget to build solar-powered EV charging stations. But the department said it will now put those funds toward health care construction projects.
  (VA pulls the plug on Biden’s $77M EV-charger earmark - Department of Veterans Affairs)
• Senior Executive Service members have some new training opportunities. The Office of Personnel Management has launched two new training series centered on executive development. The trainings, available governmentwide, focus on topics like constitutional governance, budget, policy and human capital management. Executives who are interested in taking the classes can register on OPM’s website. The costs for the courses range from $1,500 to $8,500. OPM is also asking agencies to announce the availability of the trainings to their employees by Dec. 19.
  (New SES, Senior Professional, GS-15 and GS-14 development programs - Office of Personnel Management)
• The Defense Information Systems Agency said it needs to extend a legacy contract for software asset management, largely because of staffing issues. The agency is extending the multi-million dollar contract without competition, saying the program office that was supposed to be managing a new award has been hit hard by staff cuts, deferred resignations and hiring challenges. DISA’s justification and approval document adds another year to the contract, extending it for the second time this year. The underlying award has been in place since 2019.
  (DISA extends legacy contract for software asset management - Defense Information Systems Agency)
• The cloud security program known as FedRAMP is getting back on track after the shutdown. FedRAMP has finalized its requirements for cloud service companies wanting to participate in the phase 20x pilot. The program management office detailed seven key changes in a new blog post. These include limiting the number of pilot participants to 10 cloud servicer providers who want to achieve a moderate authorization in an expedited way. The PMO expects to name the 10 pilot companies by Jan. 9 and have them through the new process by March 31. Additionally, FedRAMP issued a new continuous monitoring playbook, consolidating nine standalone documents and eliminating about 100 pages of redundant or outdated content.
  (FedRAMP sets new timeline for phase 2 20x pilot - FedRAMP)
• The Space Force is finalizing its first “objective force” blueprint, a 15-year plan that will lay out what space systems, infrastructure and manpower the service will need to counter future threats in space. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said “the bulk of the work is almost complete,” though stakeholders likely won’t see the final product until 2026. The goal for the document is to clearly and formally communicate the Space Force’s long-term needs to its stakeholders, including Congress, defense contractors, allies and partners.
  (Space Force to finalize 15-year force design this year, with release expected in 2026 - Federal News Network)

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• The Department of Veterans Affairs said it’s helping a record number of homeless veterans find permanent housing. The VA said it assisted nearly 52,000 formerly homeless veterans with housing in fiscal 2025. That’s more than any previous year tracked by the department. The VA provides subsidies to help some veterans afford rent on houses or apartments. In other cases, it helps reunite homeless veterans with family or friends.
  (VA houses largest number of homeless veterans in seven years - Department of Veterans Affairs)
• A bipartisan push to extend a cybersecurity information sharing law may have a path forward in the Senate. A 10-year extension of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 could be included in a future spending package. That’s according to Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), the co-sponsors of the bill. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been blocking their bill. But Peters and Rounds told the audience at the Aspen Institute Cyber Summit on Tuesday that the bill would have plenty of support if it can reach the Senate floor as part of a package. Congress included a short-term extension of the CISA 2015 law in the continuing resolution.
  (Aspen Institute Cyber Summit - Aspen Institute )
• The Army has selected nine installations as potential sites for microreactor power plants under its next-generation Janus nuclear power program. Meanwhile, the Defense Innovation Unit issued a solicitation for commercial advanced nuclear technologies to support the effort. The nine sites the Army identified through comprehensive analysis include Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. The Army said the final number and location for these microreactors will be determined as part of the acquisition process, but the service is committed to maximizing the number of sites.
  (Army selects nine installations for next-gen nuclear microreactors - U.S. Army)
• Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll instructed unit leaders to check in on their soldiers daily now through Jan. 15. In a memo to the force, Driscoll mandated every officer and noncommissioned officer to "deliberately" check in on every soldier to see if they need help. “The holidays can be a high-risk period for self-harm. We know it’s a problem, it happens every year, so we’ll address it head-on,” Driscoll said in the memo. The effort is based on initiatives like in the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska, where they “systemically prioritized soldier checks” to combat a high suicide rate.
  (Army secretary tells unit leaders to check in on soldiers daily now through Jan. 15 - Social media platform X)
• The Office of Personnel Management has kicked off another human resources IT modernization effort. OPM is reviewing responses to an RFI and meeting with vendors for how to modernize the USA Hire platform. Agencies use USA Hire to conduct assessments of applicants for jobs. In fiscal 2024, agencies used the program to assess approximately one million applicants for over 20,000 job opportunity announcements. OPM expects agency use to continue to grow, especially from TSA and ICE as they hire more employees. OPM plans to release a draft solicitation in January and a final request for proposals in October to modernize the USA Hire platform.
  (USA Hire added to list of federal HR systems slated for upgrades - Federal News Network)
• The Office of Personnel Management is close to finalizing its effort to strip job protections from tens of thousands of federal employees. OPM’s proposed regulations for the so-called “Schedule Policy/Career” classification have been moved into the “final rule stage,” according to the White House’s regulatory agenda. Those regulations are slated for possible finalization by the end of November. OPM’s final rule will impact career employees in “policy-influencing positions,” making them at-will and easier to fire.
  (Federal union sues OPM, seeking release of ‘Schedule Policy/Career’ records - Federal News Network)
• NASA is moving quickly to consolidate up to a quarter of its suburban Maryland campus. The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers said the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is embarking on plans to close 13 buildings on its campus. The union said NASA began work closing buildings and labs in late September and that this work continued through the government shutdown. The agency is looking to reduce 25% of the campus’s real estate by 2037.
  (NASA advances plan to shrink Goddard campus by 25% - Federal News Network)
• The General Services Administration continues to lower the price for access to AI tools. First it was $1, then it was 50 cents. Now for a quarter, agencies are able to buy artificial intelligence tools through the GSA schedule contract. Under a new deal signed with the GSA, Perplexity is offering its AI research and drafting capabilities for a mere 25 cents for the next 18 months. GSA said it structured the deal to make the software available directly from Perplexity through the GSA schedule. Previously, agencies could only access Perplexity through a reseller. This is the first OneGov agreement GSA signed that is directly with an original equipment manufacturer, or OEM.
  (GSA cuts cost for AI tool to 25 cents for next 18 months - General Services Administration)
• Agencies are likely to see an uptick in Freedom of Information Act delays and backlogs. That’s because agency FOIA offices were furloughed through the shutdown, but the law requires agencies to count normal working days during the shutdown as part of the FOIA processing time. That’s according to new Justice Department guidance to federal FOIA offices. DOJ said there were 29 days during the shutdown that will count toward FOIA requests and administrative appeals processing.
  (Calculating FOIA response times after 2025 government shutdown - Justice Dept. Office of Information Policy)
• The Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce are becoming more apparent across the country. Close to half of respondents in a nonprofit’s recent survey said they or someone they know have been personally affected by the government cuts. Six months ago, less than a third of respondents said the same. The new survey from the Partnership for Public Service also found that the impacts are disproportionately affecting younger adults.
  (The public is noticing the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts - Partnership for Public Service)

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• U.S. Cyber Command has a new chief artificial intelligence officer. Brig. Gen. Reid Novotny, who was tapped to serve in the role, said his priority will be ensuring that AI strengthens the nation’s cyber forces and improves decision-making advantages. Novotny previously served as the National Guard Bureau’s director of intelligence and cyber effects operations and most recently as the Office of the National Cyber Director’s senior military policy adviser. Novotny steps into the role amid leadership turnover and other turmoil at the military’s top cyber enterprise.
  (Cyber Command names Reid Novotny as new chief AI officer - LinkedIn)
• A Bureau of Prisons union is suing the Trump administration to try to restore collective bargaining rights. The new legal action from the American Federation of Government Employees comes after the Bureau of Prisons director terminated the agency’s labor contract. The agreement covered about 30,000 correctional workers across the country. The lawsuit alleges that the decision to cancel the contract was a form of retaliation, and that it violated employees’ First Amendment rights.
  (Lawsuit over BOP contract cancellation - American Federation of Government Employees)
• Federal employees who are retiring or separating from government can now access some new investment resources. The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board has teamed up with the Securities and Exchange Commission to create a new program for retirement advice. The program includes a tutorial covering upcoming changes to the Thrift Savings Plan. It will also explain how to manage a TSP account after leaving government and go over common red flags to look for with potential fraud.
  (What to think about when nearing retirement or considering leaving the government - Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board )
• The Education Department is taking the next step in the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the agency. The Education Department has already begun transferring some of its programs and employees to other federal agencies and says more of this work is under way. Education Secretary Linda McMahon says the department has detailed some of its employees to the Labor Department. Education also signed interagency agreements to transfer more of its personnel and programs to departments of State, Health and Human Services and Interior. McMahon says Education is soft-launching this reorganization and that the ultimate goal is to have Congress approve closing the department.
  (Education Dept soft-launches employee reassignments to other agencies in latest step of closure plans - Federal News Network)
• The Small Business Administration told laid-off employees they were getting their jobs back, but then walked back that promise. SBA sent reduction-in-force notices to some of its employees just before the government shutdown. The agency’s top HR official told impacted staff Monday that those RIF notices have been rescinded. But a day later, the same official said the layoffs will remain in effect. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from carrying out layoffs that began during the shutdown. Congress also passed shutdown-ending legislation that would keep these layoffs from coming back at least through January 30.
  (SBA told laid-off employees they could get their jobs back. It rescinded that offer a day later - Federal News Network)
• House and Senate negotiators are racing to finalize the fiscal 2026 defense authorization bill. Republican Congressman Rob Wittman said that while disputes between the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have been resolved, there are still issues with other committee jurisdictions. Those committees can either decide to waive jurisdiction or refine the language in ways that ensure the “Big Four” on HASC and SASC will agree to include it in the bill. “I think that those will hopefully be done by the end of the week, and then the bill will be in its final form. It should be on the floor at the beginning of the second week of December.”
  (Lawmakers to finalize NDAA by week’s end, bring the bill to the floor in early December - Federal News Network)
• The Office of Management and Budget has reversed course on a decision to defund the Council on Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency. OMB has now released $4.3 million for CIGIE to operate through January 30th. In September, OMB decided not to apportion any new funds for CIGIE. Multiple agency offices of inspector general websites then went dark because they relied on CIGIE services. While CIGIE now has funding through the end of January, OMB is also conducting a programmatic review of the council’s activities.
  (OMB releases some funding for IG council - Federal News Network)
• The Trump administration’s new cybersecurity strategy is coming into focus. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross says the new cyber strategy will have six pillars. Two of them will be focused on imposing costs on adversaries and strengthening partnerships with industry. And during a talk at the Aspen Institute’s cyber summit yesterday, Cairncross said the strategy will not be a thick, 100-page document. “It’s going to be a short statement of intent and policy, and then it will be paired very quickly with action items and deliverables under that,” Cairncross said. Cairncross didn't give a timeline for when the strategy would be out, but said his office is moving as quickly as possible.
  (Aspen Cyber Summit - Aspen Institute )

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• Federal employees will be able to contribute more to their Thrift Savings Plan accounts next year. The IRS increased the maximum annual contribution limit to $24,500, which is a $1,000 increase over 2025. Additionally, employees aged 50 or older can save more money through their catch-up contributions. And if employees are aged 60 to 63, they can save even more with a higher catch up contribution of $11,250.
  (IRS increases annual TSP savings limit for 2026 - IRS)
• A new bill would put a hold on some 8(a) contract awards. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) wants to stop all no-bid awards under the 8(a) Small Business Program until the Small Business Administration completes a detailed audit. The chairwoman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship's Stop 8(a) Contracting Fraud Act would put any new sole source 8(a) contracts on hold until the report is submitted to the committee in 2026. Ernst said the 8(a) program is broken and needs to be reformed. The bill comes after two high-profile examples of 8(a) contractors allegedly committing fraud. Agencies make more than 5,700 8(a) sole source awards a year.
  (Sen. Ernst wants to put freeze on 8(a) sole source awards - Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa))
• Veterans Affairs said service members forced out of the military for refusing a COVID vaccine are once again eligible for GI Bill education benefits. More than 8,000 service members refused to comply with the Biden-era vaccine mandate and separated from the military. More than half of them received a less-than-honorable discharge. That may have made them ineligible for GI Bill benefits. The VA said nearly 900 veterans are once again eligible for those benefits under the Trump administration, and that thousands more could regain eligibility.
  (Trump EO reinstates GI Bill benefits to Veterans discharged for refusing COVID vaccine - Department of Veterans Affairs)
• A majority of House lawmakers want a vote on a bill to end the Trump administration’s rollback of collective bargaining for federal employees. A bipartisan bloc of 218 House lawmakers signed onto a discharge petition forcing the House to vote on the Protect America’s Workforce Act. The bill would restore collective bargaining rights for tens of thousands of federal employees, if approved by Congress. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) was the most recent lawmaker to back the bill. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that barred unions from bargaining on behalf of federal employees at many agencies, on the grounds that those agencies work primarily in national security.
  (House majority forces vote on bill to restore collective bargaining for most federal employees - Federal News Network)
• The acting chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency resigned on Monday. David Richardson stepped down from performing the duties of the FEMA administrator after six months on the job. Richardson’s tenure was marked by major staff departures and program cuts. He also faced criticism over FEMA’s response to deadly floods in Texas over the summer. FEMA Chief of Staff Karen Evans will take on the duties of FEMA administrator starting December 1st.
  (FEMA acting chief David Richardson departs after six months on the job - Associated Press)
• The Federal Communications Commission is moving to reverse some recently issued cybersecurity requirements. The FCC will vote on Thursday to rescind cybersecurity rules for telecommunications providers. Those rules were put in place late in the Biden administration in response to the sweeping Salt Typhoon hacks that infiltrated telecom networks across the world. U.S. officials have attributed that campaign to Chinese government-backed hackers. But the current FCC leaders said the rules were unlawful and ineffective from a cyber standpoint. They point to cyber improvements that telecom providers say they have made on a voluntary basis.
  (FCC to vote on reversing cyber rules adopted after Salt Typhoon hack - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Department is failing to address the security risks created by the massive amount of publicly accessible digital information about its personnel and operations. The Government Accountability Office found that digital activity from personal and government devices, online communications and defense platforms generate traceable data, which puts DoD personnel, their families, operations and national security at risk. GAO said the department needs to conduct a comprehensive review of its security policies and guidance to identify gaps in how it manages risks in the digital environment.
  (Massive digital footprints put troops, missions at risk, watchdog finds - Government Accountability Office)
• The Defense Department has released a new list of critical technology areas. Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael has reduced the number of research-and-development priorities to six areas of focus. The list includes artificial intelligence, contested logistics technologies and scaled hypersonics. “When I stepped into this role, our office had identified 14 critical technology areas; while each of these areas holds value, such a broad list dilutes focus and fails to highlight the most urgent needs of the war fighter. Fourteen priorities in truth means no priorities at all,” Emil Michael said.
  (DoD narrows down list of critical technology areas - LinkedIn)

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